Africa

The number of votes secured by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the race to be elected leader of the ruling African National Congress. Ramaphosa won a second term as party leader, beating former health minister Zweli Mkhize, who received 1,897 votes from party delegates who met in Johannesburg. Ramaphosa swept to victory despite a scandal that threatened his premiership after the alleged cover-up of a robbery during which a large sum of dollars stashed in a sofa was stolen from his game farm.

The number of African students signing up to study for degrees from UK universities while still in their own country rose by 16.7% in the 2020/21 school year from the previous period, according to Universities UK International. The process, which is called transnational education (TNE), is usually enabled through online, distributed learning, visiting professors, or overseas campuses, among other options. Africa hosts about 126 providers of these services and has about 11.1% of all students globally. Egypt had by far the biggest cohort of African students that year.

Ghana backs off claims of Russian mercenaries in Burkina Faso

Kent is a freelance journalist based in Accra, Ghana.

THE NEWS

Ghana is backing off claims that neighboring Burkina Faso has hired Russian mercenaries to fight insurgents after the allegations sparked a diplomatic row.

Burkina Faso recalled its ambassador in Accra after President Nana Akufo-Addo made the allegations at last week’s U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, a Ghanaian foreign affairs official told Semafor. It also summoned Accra’s ambassador in Ouagadougou for questioning.

Akufo-Addo, speaking in a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, sought Washington’s support to ward off Russia-backed private security force Wagner Group which he said was operating around Ghana’s northern border with Burkina Faso. Akufo-Addo, who did not cite any evidence, also claimed a mine had been allocated to Wagner forces as payment.

Accra has struck a note of contrition since Akufo-Addo’s remarks and failed to provide more details to support the allegations.

Ghana’s ambassador to Burkina Faso, Boniface Gambila Adagbila, said Akufo-Addo did not mean to create discord, according to a Facebook post by the Burkinabe Ministry of Foreign Affairs after a meeting behind closed doors. “The intention was above all to attract the attention of partners in order to arouse great interest in Burkina Faso,” he is quoted in the post as saying.

Meanwhile, Ghana’s presidency and ministry of national security did not respond to Semafor’s requests for comment.

ALEXIS’ VIEW

On one level, the Ghanaian president’s comments appear to be the latest push by Accra to improve regional security. Last month, representatives of seven West African countries met in Ghana’s capital where they agreed to create a military force to combat jihadist insurgents in the sub region. But the row caused by Akufo-Addo’s remarks looks likely to undermine efforts for closer regional collaboration on security.

Burkina Faso was not in Washington for the summit, having been among five nations that were not invited. In a brief statement on Facebook, its foreign ministry said the government “disapproves of these statements” by Akufo-Addo. The country’s foreign minister also said Accra could have spoken to his country ahead of the summit “to be informed.”

The lack of evidence provided by Akufo-Addo, followed by his administration rowing back on the issue, calls the Ghanaian president’s judgment into question. Rather than pursuing quiet diplomacy with a neighbor that wasn’t at the summit to respond to the claims, he has risked damaging relations with the Burkinabes with whom Ghana has had a good relationship on a proposed railway, trade, and security.

The veracity of the Ghanaian president’s claims and the motivation behind the timing of the comments remain unclear. However, the deployment of Russian mercenaries is unquestionably one of the major geopolitical battles playing out in Africa. Wagner Group fighters have been rolled out in around half a dozen African countries in recent years — most notably in Mali and the Central African Republic — with reports of human rights abuses by some of its fighters.

Russian fighters enable Moscow to exert influence in countries around the Sahel at a time when France and other European countries are pulling troops out of the region. That’s vital for Russia as it tries to shore up alliances away from western countries that have imposed sanctions on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.

Akufo-Addo’s remarks came within days of the announcement that his government had reached a deal with the International Monetary Fund for a $3 billion provisional loan agreement which is unpopular with many Ghanaians. The comments and subsequent furor have diverted attention from Ghana’s worst economic crisis in a generation.

ROOM FOR DISAGREEMENT

Yao Akakpo, a security analyst at the Africa Centre for Policy Analysis and Public Interest think tank in Togo, said Ghana’s president acted responsibly by drawing attention to his concerns about the northern border with Burkina Faso.

“When your neighbor’s house is burning, you fetch water to prevent further destruction,” Akakpo told Semafor. “Burkina should rather be grateful to Ghana for using such a huge platform to possibly seek support from the US to help with the regional security situation.”

VIEW FROM BURKINA FASO

A Burkina Faso border security chief, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Semafor: “Akufo-Addo’s comments are inaccurate. We need to unite to fight the common enemy else it is sub regional security that will suffer. If Burkina abandons the southern border region, then our region will be in trouble.”

One Good Text With...Timi Soleye

The kind of funding African startups don’t need

Foreign aid has recently shifted from only giving donations and grants to providing more support of private sector development. This switch has coincided with the rise of startup ecosystems in emerging markets. As a result, foreign aid organizations have become ubiquitous in the development of startup ecosystems across Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.

While aid development organizations are often the only source of funding available, their involvement can come with drawbacks. Startups often adapt to suit their donor’s agenda rather than pursue market-related performance indicators.

Another common flaw is a donor’s focus on “job creation” when a startup ought to remain as lean as possible in its embryonic stage. And the loose definition of “impact investments” sometimes leads founders to focus on justifying “impact” instead of unapologetically focusing on market success.

Foreign aid development organizations involved in emerging startup ecosystems should do so with an exit plan aimed at encouraging hubs to become self-sufficient. This could take the form of funding local venture capitalists with no strings attached, enabling them to achieve the first exits that develop the ecosystem.

Foreign aid is too often an ecosystem’s first funder that spawns “zombie” startups which hop from grant to grant. This needs to change to prevent ecosystems in emerging markets from being set back significantly.

— Timothy Motte is building business operations at Collective, a French seed-stage startup, and publishes weekly articles analyzing the now-globalized startup world.

• U.S. diplomats devised a plan to smuggle Chad’s pro-democracy opposition leader out of the country during a deadly crackdown against pro-democracy protesters, reports Foreign Policy. It says the plan, dubbed “Operation Moses”, involved transporting Succès Masra to the border of neighboring Cameroon using the U.S. ambassador to Chad’s own embassy vehicles. However, he escaped before it was put into action.
• Sports betting has taken off across much of the continent, driven by “widening adoption of mobile payments and pandemic-era demand for digital entertainment,” says the Associated Press. But critics warn it threatens to create a gambling addiction in countries with little or no gambling regulations where some people struggling with high unemployment and the rapidly rising cost of living see betting as a quick way to earn money.

Omeife: A glimpse of Africa’s AI future

Africa, the world’s youngest continent, won’t need robots to complement its workforce in the way that may become necessary in parts of the western world within decades. But that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be useful to have help from artificial intelligence. That’s why Omeife, a female human-like robot produced by Nigerian tech startup Uniccon Group, has made a splash on Instagram. The battery-powered robot can speak Igbo, Yoruba, English, French, Swahili, Pidgin, Afrikaans and Arabic with native accents.

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